{We begin at nighttime. In the foreground are several pumpkins, including one on a table. Homestar's silhouette walks across the hills in the background. The following lines scroll in from the left along the bottom, one after the other:}

halloween special 2002

mike and matt made it

matt and missy said it

here it go

{Cut to Coach Z and Strong Sad, who are talking to each other. Homestar walks by in the background.}

COACH Z: I mean the first one was great. After the second one, they really fell orf. I mean, a pajama jammie-jam?

STRONG SAD: I rarely know what you're talking about.

{Cut to Marzipan and The King of Town, who are also talking to each other. Homestar walks past in the foreground, silhouetted.}

THE KING OF TOWN: No! I'm a video game!

MARZIPAN: I don't play video games, so I wouldn't know.

{Cut to Bubs and Strong Bad, who are talking to each other as well. Strong Mad and The Cheat stand around them. Homestar Runner walks by in the foreground, silhouetted.}

BUBS:{snickers}

STRONG BAD: What?! What are you laughing at?!

BUBS: Oh, nothin'. You look great. {snicker}

STRONG BAD: Course I look great! I'm da bee.

{Homestar Runner stops in front of a banner that reads "Homestar's Pumpkin Carve-nival"}

BUBS:{faded, offscreen} In actuality, I don't think he looks that great.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: OK, everyone. Thanks for comin' to my party, you all look great, blah, blah, blah. {leans in} It's time for the judging of the pumpkiiiins! Pchew! Pchew! Wchew! That was... the lightning... The Cheat, would you mind assisting me?

THE CHEAT:{affirmative The Cheat noises.}

{Homestar and The Cheat walk up to Strong Sad and his pumpkin, which bears a striking resemblance to his own head.}

STRONG BAD: Well, {close on the pumpkin} I stabbed it a bunch and then wrapped it in barb wire, and then I felt sorry for it so, um, I gave it some googly eyes.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: That sure was nice of you. You get most improved. Ding! {A "MOST IMPROVED" ribbon appears.}

{They go to Bubs's pumpkin, which has had a starter cord, two backwards spark plugs, and exhaust pipes protruding from it.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Hey, Bubs.

BUBS: Hey, Homestar. {an owl hoots in the background}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: What's up?

BUBS: Not a whole lot.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: What's that?

BUBS: This is my pumpkin. {wolves are heard in the distance}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Cool. Does it do anything?

BUBS: Oh yeah. Check this out.

{He pulls the cord three times. The sound of an engine starting is heard and the pumpkin contorts several times. It leaps off the table and flames come out of the exhaust. The Cheat's eyes widen in fear and he screams. The engine sputters out and the pumpkin falls back into place, but The Cheat continues screaming and runs off.}

When Strong Bad pops out of his Homestar costume, he is wearing his Da Bee shirt, though when a view is seen from the back, he is wearing no shirt at all as usual.

Pom Pom's pumpkin is impossible to make due to the floating piece of pumpkin between the girl's legs.

In Bubs's pumpkin, the spark plugs are facing backwards.

When "Homestar" puts a ribbon on Strong Mad's, Pom Pom's, and Bubs's pumpkins, there is a real "ding" sound effect instead of "Homestar" speaking it.

In the Super Kingio Bros. Easter egg, it says you have three lives, but you only use one. This is likely so you do not have to waste time dying thrice on a game you cannot win. (The time never changes either.)

Strong Bad must've been able to have flawlessly imitate both Homestar's voice and his lack of visible arms to complete his Homestar Runner costume.

If the Easter egg is counted, three people got last place: Strong Sad, Homsar, and Marzipan. Additionally, the King of Town got worst place. These are the characters to whom Strong Bad most often shows antagonism, besides Homestar.

This was the second year in a row that Marzipan dressed up as someone who died earlier in the year.

After "Homestar" judges the King of Town's pumpkin, the disappointed king says, "Sorry, King, but our princess is in another castle..." This is a reference to the NES game Super Mario Brothers. At the end of the fourth level of each world (World 1-4 to 7-4), Toad says, "Thank you, Mario! But our princess is in another castle!".

Coach Z's pumpkin is carved with the symbol for the Wu-Tang Clan, a popular rap group that started up in 1991–1992. Of course, "Homestar" mistakes this symbol for Witches' Brew, thereby touching off a score of future brew-related inside jokes.

Homsar's response to getting last place, "And also with you," is from some Catholic and Protestant church services. It is the usual response from the congregation after the priest says, "The Lord be with you."

The Green Hornet, as the Goblin (as Strong Bad) was wrongly thought to be, was the crime-fighting vigilante hero of a '30s era radio drama by the creator of the Lone Ranger. It spawned several serials during the '40s and in the '60s spawned a cult hit TV show remembered mainly for its casting of Bruce Lee as the Hornet's trusty sidekick, Kato.

The "Pajama Jammie-Jam" that Coach Z is talking about at the beginning of the toon is a reference to the movie House Party 2. The tagline of the movie was "The Pajama Jam".

On the "Learn to speak The Cheat" record in the Strong Bad Email cheat talk, one of the phrases is "The King of Town is so lame." The Cheat uses this phrase here when asked what he thinks of the King of Town.

A reference to this toon is made in Main Page 19: When rolling over Toons, Homestar says "Contestant number one, your name again is—Toons?" In this cartoon, "Homestar" introduces Strong Sad the same way.

Strong Bad says that he won the "good medal" in The Cheat's Flash animation in strong badathlon.

In dangeresque 3, when he and Homestar encounter Killingyouguy, Strong Bad comments, "That guy is tall," which is what he says when he walks up to Strong Mad in this toon for his entry.

In virus, when he learns that his Compy 386 is over and that the virus equals "very yes", Strong Bad cries, "That's not a good prize!"

MATT: Remember during the loading screen on this you could click on the little pumpkin and change its facial features.

MIKE: That's right. All the Halloween cartoons used to have some little game you could play—

MATT: Right.

MIKE: —at the beginning during the, uh, loading screen.

MATT: 'Cause it took so long to load that cartoon.

MIKE:{laughs} Yeah. So this cartoon, uh, we didn't know the ending of until after we'd made pretty much the whole cartoon. Yeah, except for the end—like we'd done all—H—Homestar judging all the pumpkins and then at the end we didn't know what was gonna happen or how it was gonna end and then we came up with it pretty much right before we made it and put it up, right?

MIKE: I think it's one of my favorite. I don't know, for some reason the, uh....

MATT: It was a new background—

MIKE: Yeah, that—

MATT: —the spooky sky, uh—

MIKE: —the black hills gradiating into the purple ground.

MATT: Gradiating.

MIKE: Gr—Gradienting?

MATT: Yeah, either one's probably a good—

MIKE: Fading?

MATT: —made up word. Uh, Coach Z looks very good as, uh, Kid.

{pause}

MATT: There's a couple of these pumpkins that don't physically work, I think. Where there's some chunks of things just floating.

MIKE: Just floating, yeah.

MATT: Yeah, that you'd have to have some string or wire involved in your carving.

MIKE: Ah, it's—

MATT: It's Ghost dog!

MIKE: —Easter egg Homsar. You know I haven't seen Ghost Dog since we saw it in the theater where our friend Matt had a razor blade in his pocket.

MATT: And cut his hand, like in half.

MIKE: Cut his hand halfway through the movie and didn't say anything, and we just get out of the movie and his hand's bleeding and he's like "Oh yeah, I had a razor blade in my pocket and I cut my hand. That's the kind of guy Matt is.

MATT:{stops the sound effects} Totally sounded like me going "HWAH". I was noticing in, uh, I think it was Sly Cooper 2 there's a sound effect that sounds like it's just a guy going "peow" or something. It doesn't happen very often but.... {trails off} The poor Cheat is, uh, scared of fire. Has that come back before? I can't remember if we're been consistent with that or not.

MIKE: Uhhh... I don't know, I don't think so. I fell like this is the only time. Maybe it's just fiery pumpkins.

MATT: Now {sounds like "Nah"} wait a minute! {pause} You can tell I'm gettin' a sore throat.